Often attributed to the 26 November 1938 issue of Collier's Weekly, an investigation of the quote in this blog post included scans of that issue of Collier's, here and here and here and here, showing it does contain the individual… Read the full notes
Misattributed quotes
Some of the most-shared quotes were never said by the people they are credited to. Here are the ones Wikiquote lists as misattributed, with what is known about where they really came from.
We rely on the notes and sources recorded on Wikiquote and show them next to each quote. “Misattributed” means the evidence points away from the credited person — it does not always tell us who did say it.
I know just where I stand ... in the very first row of the second-raters.
Misattribution originally by Louis Wilkinson, in Louis Marlow [Wilkinson], “Somerset Maugham,” Writers of To-day 2, Denys Val Baker, ed. (London: Sidgwick & Jackson, 1948), 43 | I know just where I stand … in the very front row of the… Read the full notes
If you can dream it, you can do it.
Despite its frequent publication, that is not a Walt Disney quote. We checked with Imagineer Tom Fitzgerald for the definitive answer: "I am very familiar with that line because I wrote it! It was written specifically for the Horizons… Read the full notes
Resistance to tyranny is obedience to God.
This was used as an abolitionist and feminist slogan in the 19th century and has sometimes been attributed to Tyndale, but more frequently to Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin, who has been cited as having wanted it to be the motto… Read the full notes
I hope to have God on my side, but I must have Kentucky!
It is evident that the worthy President would like to have God on his side: he must have Kentucky. | Moncure D. Conway (1862), The Golden Hour Read the full notes
A child miseducated is a child lost.
Umaru Tanko Al-Makura on 29th July, 2013 at The Official Commissioning Of Ta'al Model School, Lafia By Nigeria's President Goodluck Ebele Jonathan where Umaru Tanko Al-Makura said: "And, because the human mind is our fundamental resource… Read the full notes
Hermann Weyl as quoted by Freeman Dyson: "Characteristic of Weyl was an aesthetic sense which dominated his thinking on all subjects. He once said to me, half-joking, 'My work always tried to unite the true with the beautiful; but when I… Read the full notes
If I advance; follow me! If I retreat; kill me! If I die; avenge me!
Mussolini actually repeated this sentence various times but the quote didn't originate with him. Attributed to Mussolini by G. K. Chesterton in G. K's Weekly (1925), and later appearing in "Duce (1922-42)" in Time magazine (2 August 1943)… Read the full notes
Attributed to Eliade in The Little Book of Romanian Wisdom (2011) edited by Diana Doroftei and Matthew Cross, this appears to be a translation of the last line of the poem "The Holy Longing" by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, which, as… Read the full notes
The long march through the institutions.
See Strategy, Hegemony & ‘The Long March’: Gramsci’s Lessons for the Antiwar Movement, by Carl Davidson, April 06, 2006. | It was popularized in the protests of 1968, and Dutschke’s posthumous 1980 work is titled Mein langer Marsch (My… Read the full notes
Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.
This has become attributed to both Walt Whitman and Helen Keller, but has not been found in either of their published works, and variations of the quote are listed as a proverb commonly used in both the US and Canada in A Dictionary of… Read the full notes
Judge a man by his questions rather than by his answers.
Il est encore plus facile de juger de l'esprit d'un homme par ses questions que par ses réponses. (It is easier to judge the mind of a man by his questions rather than his answers) — Pierre-Marc-Gaston, duc de Lévis (1764-1830), Maximes et… Read the full notes
Vicisti, Galilaee or "νενίκηκας Γαλιλαῖε"
This exclamation has often been attributed to Julian, as his last words, but it actually originates much later with the derisive account of his death by Theodoret, Ecclesiastical History, bk. 3, ch. 20 (c. 429), as an exclamation he made… Read the full notes
It's always darkest before it's totally black.
This is a humorous misattribution that US Senator John McCain has sometimes used since at least January 2000, but there is no indication that Mao actually ever made such a comment, which is a joke referencing the common English proverb… Read the full notes
Evil is the result of what happens when man does not have God's love present in his heart.
This statement has been attributed to others before Einstein; its first attribution to Einstein appears to have been in an email story that began circulating in 2004. See the Urban Legends Reference Pages for more discussion. Read the full notes
Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I may remember. Involve me and I learn.
Not having heard of it is not as good as having heard of it. Having heard of it is not as good as having seen it. Having seen it is not as good as knowing it. Knowing it is not as good as putting it into practice. Learning arrives at… Read the full notes
A democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to have for lunch. | Gary Strand, Usenet group sci.environment, 23 April 1990. | Democracy is not freedom. Democracy is two wolves and a lamb voting on what to eat for lunch. Freedom… Read the full notes
War is God's way of teaching Americans geography.
"The comment 'War is God's way of teaching Americans geography,' is continually attributed to Ambrose Bierce. Biographer David E. Schultz, who has nearly all of Bierce's writing entered on his computer, cannot find this acerbic remark… Read the full notes
There is only one way to avoid criticism: do nothing, say nothing and be nothing.
Source: Elbert Hubbard, Little Journeys to the Homes of American Statesmen (1898), p. 370: "If you would escape moral and physical assassination, do nothing, say nothing, be nothing—court obscurity, for only in oblivion does safety lie."… Read the full notes
The witticism was first attributed to Bismarck in printed form, as far as it is clear, in Zeitschrift für Bekämpfung der Geschlechtskrankheiten. Im Auftrage der Deutschen Gesellschaft zur Bekämpfung der Geschlechtskrankheiten. Volume 2… Read the full notes